Post-Lockdown pedal building

roberty

Awesome, yes it's a great hobby and potentially a money saver (although it doesn't seem to work out that way for me)

Cookiemonster

roberty said:

Awesome, yes it's a great hobby and potentially a money saver (although it doesn't seem to work out that way for me)

Yes I am not saving money at the moment, just buying more things. PCB holder, Soldering Matt, desolder wick, solder, tools etc and a new soldering station. 

rsvmark

I came across a possible option yesterday. I dropped off my enclosure at the powder coater locally (£10) and there was a printer next door. I popped in and while he couldn’t help, he steered me to another printer.

they have a product called ‘Tear free’ which in effect is plastic paper. They use it to laser print safety tags for oil rigs. Once printed it’s waterproof and requires no lacquer. It has a sheen to it and can be glued using pva. They can do a full range of colours apart from a clear label so I am tempted to give that a go.

last nights jobs were:
Sort components - done and labelled with masking tape
Mocked up a label for the top- secretly quite please with my Rat a like design but it’s an AT - and I ran off a template but  realised I can’t test fit as the predrilled enclosure is being powder coated! Lesson 1 learned.

Just waiting for the amazon driver to deliver the helping hand - glad I ordered one with a magnifying glass- these components are tiny!

stickyfiddle

That printable plastic sounds good - can you print at home or does it need a specific printer? 

I saw Stewmac suggesting car vinyl wrap as an option for making pedals pretty. Could be a good option

roberty

Decals day. They are more delicate than I expected but also more forgiving so you can afford to mess up a bit and then fix it. It was slightly more stressful than drilling the bigsby into my SG

rsvmark

stickyfiddle said:

That printable plastic sounds good - can you print at home or does it need a specific printer? 

I saw Stewmac suggesting car vinyl wrap as an option for making pedals pretty. Could be a good option

He gave me an A3 sheet to try. I suspect to get the quality and waterproofness that it is a laser colour system as ink jet will always be inkjet and need a clear coat. I might try a small sample though. I am also going to try pva glue with a small sample To a flat Painted surface as a trial.

car vinyl sounds like a good option too. Both will be good options I suspect for the ‘fully covered’ design options. Less so for nice subtle design like @roberty above as you will always be trying to match the colour of the print to the colour of the paint and it will never quite match

rsvmark

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047976052_69ffa5e059_k.jpg  ;

Oh bugger, what have I started...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047716466_9822bb4a5f_k.jpg ;

They are a bit smaller than I thought....

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047716696_3c5587c44b_k.jpg  ;

Progress is ok, which is better than the utter feckin mess I made of the test circuit

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047976077_51b9a8a12c_k.jpg  ;

4 resistors in. Quit while I'm ahead with a shot of the face template in the background. Time for a gin

stickyfiddle

Looking good so far!

SteveF

Some great looking builds in here chaps.  Haven't posted in a while, but been ticking along with some pedal builds in the back ground.  I don't often build from PCBs.  I usually do strip board, but I ordered a few from Pedal PCB a while back and figured why not.  A few of my recent ones:

rsvmark

@SteveF Those look really neat. Good work

SteveF

Thanks. Much easier to get it neat on a pcb. Some of my strip board builds, not so much! 

roberty

@rsvmark you're wise to take it slowly, I reckon it'll come out great

@SteveF they look awesome how are you doing the graphics?

SteveF

@roberty I'm using inkjet printer onto vinyl sticker paper then Envirotex Lite resin over the top.  Takes a bit of time as the resin needs to dry for the better part of a week before assembly but it's worth it.  I haven't found any other clear coat that works as well and is as durable. 

roberty

SteveF said:

@roberty I'm using inkjet printer onto vinyl sticker paper then Envirotex Lite resin over the top.  Takes a bit of time as the resin needs to dry for the better part of a week before assembly but it's worth it.  I haven't found any other clear coat that works as well and is as durable. 

Ah I see, so you're printing onto white. It looks great. Where do you keep them as the resin dries? I have no outdoor space so I'm taking them outside on the road. Desperate to get my clear coat on but it's raining on and off here lol

SteveF

You pour the resin on so you don’t have to do it outside. I usually do it in the kitchen and have the enclosure on a paper plate. I cover it with a plastic tub (Chinese takeaway type) while it dries. After the first few hours checking periodically and wiping drips off the sides with some meths, I move them out of the way to a bookshelf. 

andy1839

rsvmark said:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047976052_69ffa5e059_k.jpg  ;

Oh bugger, what have I started...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047716466_9822bb4a5f_k.jpg ;

They are a bit smaller than I thought....

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047716696_3c5587c44b_k.jpg  ;

Progress is ok, which is better than the utter feckin mess I made of the test circuit

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50047976077_51b9a8a12c_k.jpg  ;

4 resistors in. Quit while I'm ahead with a shot of the face template in the background. Time for a gin

I just completed my Angry Andy kit. Went well, worked first time, took about 45 minutes from start to finish.

It was my first kit build and it sounds great.
I haven't bothered painting the enclosure, seemed pointless as it's not on show. 

rsvmark

Progress was good..... until now. Just fitting a couple of diodes and using my multimeter (in diode test mode) I can see there Isn’t any polarity, ie I get the same reading irrespective of which way I connect to. I think a diode is effectively a 1 way valve. Using the multimeter on 2 different diodes, I get a voltage drop one way and then nothing the other. The implication then is that those other 2 diodes are working and the 2 I just fitted aren’t working... re-reading the instructions, fuzz dog states they are fragile and to use a croc clip as a heat sink. I did this on a working diode and then forgot on these 2. 

Summary- I suspect I cooked the diodes? If so is the best thing to check back with fuzzdog? They are BAT41 whatever that means.

andy1839

rsvmark said:

Progress was good..... until now. Just fitting a couple of diodes and using my multimeter (in diode test mode) I can see there Isn’t any polarity, ie I get the same reading irrespective of which way I connect to. I think a diode is effectively a 1 way valve. Using the multimeter on 2 different diodes, I get a voltage drop one way and then nothing the other. The implication then is that those other 2 diodes are working and the 2 I just fitted aren’t working... re-reading the instructions, fuzz dog states they are fragile and to use a croc clip as a heat sink. I did this on a working diode and then forgot on these 2. 

Summary- I suspect I cooked the diodes? If so is the best thing to check back with fuzzdog? They are BAT41 whatever that means.

I don't think any of the parts are expensive, are these the ones?

https://www.switchelectronics.co.uk/bat41-silicon-schottky-diode-100v-do-35?gclid=Cj0KCQjw3Nv3BRC8ARIsAPh8hgKB5Re2NPbMQlTiWxDoz-hprzaM1FOnxMpi69eVeJa9TCNM6PwIAu8aAlglEALw_wcB

I used a pair of long tweezers to grip the diode leg between the diode and where I was heating, leaving a little stand off distance in the leg just to make sure it didn't cook.

To be fair I put the tweezers on every component I soldered just so I wouldn't forget.
I knew I'd end up binning it if it didn't work first time!

rsvmark

@andy1839 The picture looks similar but these are so small it’s difficult to say. Reading the blurb all I can tell you is that it’s a BAT41 and the circuit can be run at 9v or 18v. If they are 9/10ths of sod all to buy I’ll give fuzzdog a bell. But would you say my diagnosis rings true ish?

Fuengi

Can anyone recommend a multimeter for pedal and guitar work? Think it's worth my getting one.